Backpacking the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

On Saturday, July 6, we started a 3-day backpack down into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. While the trail mileage wasn't long, the trail was steep and we enjoyed all of the unusual sights.

Here's a shot of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone from where we started:

On our way down into the canyon, we passed a number of geothermal features, but the most unusual was this large sinter cone, formed by some long-dead geyser:

When we reached the river, we were astounded at its power and the colors of the canyon it travels through.  Here is a video of the river running through the canyon.

It's mid-July and the stonefly hatch has started. We met three fishermen – a grandfather, father and 6-year old grandson, who were camping nearby. They live locally, and had hiked in to fish the stonefly hatch. They hooked literally hundreds of trout during the two days they were here. We kicked ourselves the whole trip that we hadn't done more research to discover how good the fly fishing would be. And us without our fly rods. Here is a photo of some stonefly nymph casings, left by the stoneflies when they molt from nymphs – which are bug-like – into flies – which look like buggy biplanes, or dragonflies, as they fly over the river:

We set up camp and enjoyed our first evening with a view of the river. However, no sooner did we get settled, then a thunderstorm blew in, raining hail larger than pea-size down on our dining room under our camp tarp.  Here is a video of the event.

It rained into the night, but the morning of our second day dawned clear, and after breakfast we started out on our exploration of the area.

First, we hiked downstream along the river, to see what we could see and how far we could walk. We spotted lots of pools where trout could hang out, and we saw the three fishermen again. But perhaps most interesting, we encountered a number of geothermal features right along the water's edge. Here's Kathy getting up close and personal with a fumarole:

Hiking back to the area of the river below our camp, we spotted a female mule deer munching on some grass. She was wary of us, but we stayed still and she just kept munching:

We hiked back up to a large geothermal basin we had passed hiking down and in to our campsite, and explored the basin, the trail to another campsite, and the view of the river near that area:

One of the fishermen told us that he had seen a mountain lion in that geothermal basin the prior year, but we saw no evidence of it.

Coming back to the river below our campsite, we saw that the previous night's rain had brough out all of the colors in the canyon. We saw every color of the rainbow in the cliffsides: whites, pinks, salmons, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, purples, blues, yellows and greys:

We discovered a hot spring right below our campsite, next to the river, and it spilled its boiling waters into the raging cold of the Yellowstone. The orange colors on the rocks and soil next to Kathy are thermophylic (“heat loving”) bacteria and fungi that grow in the hot water where it runs down into the river:

The second evening, it didn't thunderstorm until about 7:00 or so, by which time we were tucked safely into our tent. We slept dry and well.

The morning of our third day dawned clear again, with a bright blue sky, and the sun shown up the canyon, reflecting its golden light on everything:

We had breakfast and hit the trail by about 8:15, with a very long, steep climb out of the canyon. Along the way, we stopped again at the geothermal basin, and spotted a fumarole and hot spring, which clearly had once been a geyser due to its sinter cone. Kathy is exploring it in this photo:

The rest of the hike was strenuous but enjoyable. We encountered all of the backpackers and dayhikers coming down into the canyon and shared our information with them. After a quick circuit of the tourist stops at the top of the canyon to see the Upper Falls and Lower Falls, we stopped at Inspiration Point and could barely make out – miles downriver – the area where we had camped the previous two nights.

It was a good backpack, and we're already looking forward to our next one, which we hope will be in the Lamar River Valley of Yellowstone, where a large variety of wildlife is said to roam.